“Find a need and fill it.” That’s great advice in a capitalist society and it’s how many people have gotten rich while improving other’s lives.

Al Gore has a different twist on that adage: Use false data to create an artificial need, and then fill that need using pork:

The man who was within sight of the presidency 12 years ago has transformed himself, becoming perhaps the world’s most renowned crusader on climate change and a highly successful green-tech investor.

Just before leaving public office in 2001, Gore reported assets of less than $2 million; today, his wealth is estimated at $100 million.

[snip]

Fourteen green-tech firms in which Gore invested received or directly benefited from more than $2.5 billion in loans, grants and tax breaks, part of President Obama’s historic push to seed a U.S. renewable-energy industry with public money.

Please understand that I value a clean environment. But proposing solutions for dealing with pollution is not how Gore got rich. Gore got rich by creating an artificial panic structured around his hysterical insistence that human activity was turning the earth into a giant oven. That’s fraud. And using taxpayer created slush funds to fund his boondoggle is indecent — and it’s also Progressive politics as usual.